


In Between

by agentverbivore (verbivore8642)



Series: Ficlets [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 2x16 spoilers, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fitz's POV, Fluff, Jemma's POV, Missing Moments, Missing Scene, quiet moments around their cahooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbivore8642/pseuds/agentverbivore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing moments surrounding FitzSimmons' subterfuge in 2x16 "Afterlife" - and one moment quite a bit later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Between

**Author's Note:**

> The rating is overly cautious - this could probably have stayed G.

**3:13 AM**  

The ceiling is gray-greens and blues, the remnants of dimmed artificial lighting, automated air filters humming around him in the sloped walls. His hand shakes, but this time it’s because of the cold, not the tremors, and he reaches forward to pull up his blanket. It had fallen down again, as if he’d been having a particularly rigorous dream. He doesn’t get back to sleep for a long time, massaging feeling back into his hand, unable to stop thinking about the way hers had felt in his just days before. Cool. Shivering. Promising.

 

 **7:35 AM**  

People she once considered colleagues filter uneasily through the mess hall before work, and she wonders where their thoughts lie. If this is no more than a job to them, if the leadership itself is irrelevant, because she can’t understand what it would be like to care so little. As anticipated, she watches him shuffle wearily into the mess hall, dark circles under his eyes, and knows he had trouble sleeping, too. It’s hard to rest alone, unguarded, when you could be taken away by those you once trusted at any moment. He hones in on her part of the counter, going in the direction of the kettle, as if on autopilot, not realizing she’s there until he almost bumps into her. His hands raise instinctively in a clumsy, tired apology, but the words are only halfway out of his mouth before he sees that it’s her. 

She lifts her hands so that his gaze drops to the two cups she holds there, steady, waiting, letting the one made especially for him (so much sugar, never enough) shift slightly forward. Dark water shimmers under dim fluorescent lights, steam rising between them. He’s quiet for a moment, thinking, and although she aches for times when something like this had seemed so simple, he doesn’t make her wait long. His fingers brush hers as he takes the proffered cup, warm as they had been when he wrapped them over hers only days before, and gives her a grateful nod. When he asks if she’s going to the lab, she says yes, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth to subdue her smile.

 

**11:47 AM**

Another man who used to be his friend is talking, but he can’t stand to look at him, not again, not this time. He’s given people like that too many chances before, and not once has he seen any reward or benefit. For now, he’s going to stay close to those who were there from the beginning, whose lies hurt but were transient, were about anything other than the self. The flash of anger he feels at hearing that she’s working with them is sharp, potent, a reminder that what was broken has not yet been fixed. But when he watches her diagnostics, a careful frown on his face, warmth blooms in his chest and he knows that what is not yet might well be fixed soon.

For now, he feeds off the old anger that makes up so much of him these days when he storms into the lab, reading her tailored lies and selling a few of his own. Her face is schooled into that exhausted expression she’s worn for so long, but her eyes – her eyes watch his every move, shining with a subtle light meant only for him. It’s about their work, he knows, but once he’s switched the box he carries that light with him out of the lab and back to his room. Leaving is terrifying, but he has a job to do – and she’ll be beside him the whole time anyway, in the form of a throwaway snapshot, with tied-back windswept hair and a goofy smile.

 

**1:16 PM**

They think she’s making her own lunch, but she has no intention of eating, instead bustling anxiously around the kitchen and searching for the right ingredients. When she’d requested all this, only days ago, she’d expected to give him the sandwich herself, halves sliced and set on a real plate, thought that maybe she could use it as a starting point, or a talking point. Or at the very least use it to show him that she is still here, would always be here, if maybe her hands alone were not enough. Instead, she’s dashing things together, a slice here, a chop there, and just the barest hint of the aioli she’d prepared four days prior before wrapping everything up.

Her hands grab for a nearby sharpie, automatically uncapping it, but she stops millimeters above the carefully cut paper. She doesn’t know when they’ll speak again ( _if ever_ her traitorous brain adds, but she pushes that fear aside, knowing that they had to), so this piece of paper is her only chance to tell him anything. The sandwich itself is the key, of course – besides, if he didn’t know what it was, he might wait too long to eat it and the mozzarella would spoil. That would be unacceptable, so she starts with that. Then her fears creep back in, and she adds those two little words – restrained, she thinks, because what she really wants to say is: _Come back to me_. _I want to learn what the next steps are, and I want to learn them with you_. A deep breath, and she remembers how all the people she’s known have ever ended notes, remembers emails, books, newspapers, and only a few, very specific ones feel right. She puts pen to paper before she can change her mind. The marker wavers slightly but she manages to get it out, pulse thudding wildly in her ears, far more heavily than when she’d been lying to the faces of people she would never trust again. 

 

**2:03 PM**

Their de-facto guards keep eyeing the two of them as they walk to the edge of the loading bay, as if there’s an expectation of begging or arguing or pleading. Perhaps there should have been, he thinks as she grabs his bag for him, needlessly checking the closures. But they’ve been watched almost every moment since he stated his plan to leave, and they wouldn’t have had time to coordinate that level of deception – a part of him was still shocked they’d gotten this far, their truths far too easily hidden in silences and falsified glares. Her hands don’t linger against his shoulders when she helps him slip on his bag and he manages not to turn back to her for too long. 

The sandwich throws him briefly out of the adrenaline rush that carried him away from his home and into the lonely unknown, and he can’t grab it fast enough. His fingers don’t shake at all when he turns it over to find her note, so much longer than the last one, which had simply borne his name. _It can’t be_ , he thinks, there’s no way for her to have gotten the ingredients or even mixed them together, wondering if it’s another code or cipher. But once he’s shed the wrapping and lifted it up – he knows. He’d know that smell anywhere, allowing a real grin to grace his lips as he takes a big, well-deserved bite of his favorite sandwich, the one that only she ever made. His path was unclear and their lives again thrown into uncertainty, but, as he stared down at the six-word note, he knew he still had a home to which he would return.

 

**3:21 PM**

His bunk is bare except for one inconsequential picture frame, bed unmade and trash full, and she tries not to be disappointed that he left no note for her. She pulls off the sheets and tells herself that she shouldn’t have expected one; the day had gone fast and they were still on uneasy ground, tiptoeing around a new version of their friendship that neither of them yet understood. Clearing out the room is quick and almost painless, and she returns to her own afterwards. Soon, they would call her back to the lab and she would complete the last part of the deception, using thoughts of him to calm her nerves, but for now she needed time to breathe. That doesn’t seem to be in store for her, however, because all the air leaves her lungs when she stands at the entrance to her own room. A small blue box – theoretically bigger on the inside than out – now rests on her desk, and her hand raises instinctively to press over her heart, as if she could hold back that surge of dizzying hope. 

 

**In Four Weeks, sometime between midnight and dawn**

His lips trail heat up the side of her neck, elbows bracketing her ribs from where he holds himself above, and her heart is beating so fast she’s having trouble breathing. She’s scared, she realizes, fingers flexing into his curls as she brings his lips back to hers, he’s here and she wants this so ardently that she’s terrified. He’s pressed against the length of her, weight comforting and thrilling, like the present he left on her desk before he left. (Maybe one day she’ll tell him that she held it that first night to get to sleep, sharp corners digging into her palm.) Warmth pools in her belly when he pulls back to look at her, eyes dark lapis and fire, cheeks shadowed and unshaven, and she laughs. It’s small and quiet, as she slides a thumb along his bottom lip, and he studies her, as if he isn’t sure that she’s really there.

Below him, she’s all hazy light and beautiful angles, sketches on his drafting paper come to life, and he can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face. Her skin is softer than anything he’s ever touched, fragile and fierce, like the mind he loves so much. He’s nervous, pulse beating deafeningly in his ears, but he’s not afraid anymore. They’ve always known that they’re better together, smarter, stronger, unbreakable, and he leans down to press his lips gently against hers, fulfilling a promise. She shifts when he moves away again, perplexed, impatient, but he has one more question before they can go hurdling over that line, something that’s been circling in the back of his head. 

“ _Did you mean it? The note? The – the signature?”_

_“Yes.”_


End file.
